KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) has released the list of host sites for the fifth annual NAIA Baseball National Championship Opening Round, the national office announced Monday. The event will be played May 9—13 and features nine five-team double elimination tournaments. The 45 qualifiers and brackets for the National Championship Opening Round will be announced on May 5.

Oklahoma City, Lee (Tenn.) and Embry-Riddle (Fla.) headline the group, each hosting its fifth-straight Opening Round. All three host teams have advanced to the NAIA World Series in each of the four previous seasons.

The Appalachian Athletic Conference (AAC), Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference (CCAC) and William Carey (Miss.) round out the remainder of the Opening Round sites. Both the AAC and CCAC are hosting for the third time, while William Carey is holding the event for the second time.

The Opening Round site selection process takes into account: geography, facilities, student-athlete experience and host qualification. In the event that a selected bid is tied directly to an institution, that school is guaranteed at least an at-large host berth in the Opening Round. The application deadline for bids was April 1.

The nine Opening Round champions join host Lewis-Clark State (Idaho) to make up the field at the 2013 Avista-NAIA World Series at Harris Field in Lewiston, Idaho, May 24 – 31.

For more information on the NAIA Baseball National Championship, click here.